


why don't i go (why do i stay)

by notromanticjusthopeless



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Writing Exercise, inspired by current events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 17:47:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notromanticjusthopeless/pseuds/notromanticjusthopeless
Summary: "Sticks and stones may break her bones, but words are merely knowledge, and those who know better seldom get burned."  She had always known exactly how this story would end.





	why don't i go (why do i stay)

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”People criticize the old saying for being untrue, but she had always found the words quite accurate. Many had tried to wield words as weapons against her, but, luckily for her, she was smarter than she looked. They may have called her dumb, shallow, unsophisticated, but they had forgotten the old adage that says only a fool judges a book by its cover.

Sticks and stones may break her bones, but words are merely knowledge, and those who know better seldom get burned.

She had found herself merely the newest character in a lifelong series, the prologue of which was some twenty-odd years long. By the time she had shown up, there was little need for exposition. In the grand scheme of things, she realized that she was merely a supporting character, a plot twist in the overall narrative. But this is particular instalment was _hers_, and she’d be damned if she allowed them to relegate her to the background.

It all began on the night before the wedding. Toward the end of the rehearsal dinner, she looked around, and her soon-to-be-husband was nowhere to be seen. So she told her girlfriends that she needed to go for a drive, before veering south and heading straight toward London. She could have blamed her accuracy on her killer instincts, but she knew even an imbecile would have hazarded _this_ guess. When she found them, his hands were firmly yet tenderly gripping her waistline, while hers gently played with the mussed hair at the base of his neck. Their foreheads were pressed together, mouths open, lips barely touching, as they slowly swayed to the sound of silence in the frame of the doorway. After several moments, it was the Tessa who pulled away, whispering to him, before he made his way back to his car, lipstick smeared on the collar of his rumpled dress shirt. 

She may have known the ending of the story, but it had begun with a twist she hadn’t seen coming.

Fool me once, shame on you.

As he closed the car door, she hit the speed dial.

“Hey babe, you thinking about me? I’m sure you’re _super busy_ getting ready for tomorrow, but I just wanted to say goodnight.”

As Scott stuttered on the other end of the line, she watched his car haphazardly back out and drive away, the door to the house slowly swinging shut.

Neither one had noticed Jackie watching from across the street.

They next day, Tessa showed up with a tall, handsome man at her side. Throughout the reception, Jackie’s new husband showered her in public displays of affection, his hands caressing her body just a bit too vigorously, more like a child handling a toy than a man lavishing affection upon his wife. Meanwhile, he frantically scanned the room, only stopping when his gaze landed upon the beautiful woman with the purportedly _gorgeous_ green eyes. However, whenever he managed to catch her attention, she vanished as quickly as she had appeared, the two of them seemingly engaged in some perverse game of cat and mouse. She eventually did run into Tessa later that evening, and it gave her a sick sense of satisfaction to see the beautiful brunette so tense, repeatedly smoothing non-existent wrinkles from her dress. Jackie couldn’t help but further her amusement. “Oh my god, how are you?!” she exclaimed with a smirk. ”It seems that Scott’s been looking for you.” 

“I know,” the woman grimaced. If she had been less observant, the response would have come as a surprise. “Good luck,” Tessa added, an indecipherable look flashing across her face, before she quickly turned and walked away. A moment later, a breathless Scott was by her side, but Tessa had already gone. She wasn’t surprised when his overt affection suddenly ceased.

Months passed, and Jackie found herself entering a new chapter in her life, as she collapsed onto the couch, thankful to have finally entered her second trimester. Just the other day, they had announced her pregnancy to the world, Scott plastering sonogram photos all over the internet, acting as if he had never incessantly whined in her ear about people invading his privacy. As she took a seat next to him, he quickly closed the laptop, but not before she had managed to catch a glimpse.

She feigned ignorance. “What were you looking at?” she asked, eyes sparkling with mischief.

His gaze remained glued to the television as he shrugged. “Nothing much.” She wondered whether he took her for a fool, or if he was simply stupid enough to believe he could convincingly lie.

“Here, let me see!” She quickly grabbed the laptop from the other side of the couch. As she opened it, the photos lit up the screen. The man, the woman, the engagement ring. “Oh my god, you didn’t tell me Tess got engaged!” she cried with false enthusiasm, scrolling through the professional photos he had been staring at. Scott offered a constipated smile, fidgeting awkwardly. “_God_, her fiancé is hot.” It was true, Greg _was_ hot, far hotter than Scott, even in his prime. As she slyly continued to rub the engagement in her husband’s face, she felt an odd sort of kinship with the other woman, albeit the kind that inspired disgust and self-loathing. Regardless, she was impressed by the equilibrium those two had managed to maintain in their never-ending game of tit-for-tat.

She lost the plot for a time, after the births of her sons, but she wasn’t worried; she had eyes and ears everywhere. They all met again at his parents’ anniversary party. She stood quietly by Scott’s side as he loudly and obnoxiously bragged about the boys, Landon and Jackson, two sons in two years. Tessa, meanwhile, was waltzing throughout the room on her husband’s muscular arm, looking disgustingly wonderful in her maternity clothing, showing off her baby bump to all who would listen. Theirs was one of the most skillful silent exchanges she had ever witnessed.

Becoming irked by their old games, she was delighted when she stumbled upon a particularly tense argument between the lesser known menage-a-trios. 

“And you just weren’t going to tell me?!” Tessa’s husband, Greg, yelled in a whisper, veins throbbing at his temples.

Tessa stood between the two men, and, suddenly, her florid vocabulary was simply nowhere to be found. “I was planning on telling you! I just-“

“Oh really? When?!” Greg’s excellent bullshit detection skills were always vastly entertaining. 

Then her husband, her fraudulent knight in dull-plated armour, made a wholly inadequate attempt at a rescue. “Stop it. You’re upsetting her,” he commanded, and she realized that he truly thought his words had that special, magical influence over everyone. 

“_Sweetie_,” the endearment dripped like spoiled honey from her lips, “I’m getting tired. I think it’s time we got back home to the boys,” she crooned, taking pleasure in watching the other woman’s shoulders stiffen. 

Her husband proceeded to stand there like a lost puppy dog waiting for his owner to give a command.

“Goodnight, Scott,” Greg dismissed him. As Scott tried to protest, she heard Tessa whisper through gritted teeth, “If I wanted you involved, I would have asked.” Jackie had to smother a snicker.

As they started up the car, Scott stared straight ahead, his entire body vibrating with agitation. “You probably shouldn’t involve yourself in other people’s business,” she chastised, not that she expected him to listen to her advice. He preferred to live his life like a game of Russian roulette, naively believing the chamber couldn’t possibly house a single bullet.

“But it _is_ my…“ he stopped, and she rolled her eyes. It sucked the pleasure right out of it, Jackie thought, when he made the game this effortlessly easy.

Next thing she knew, it was Christmas Eve. Jackie had always considered Christmas her favourite holiday, even more so now that her boys, who were one and two, enhanced that feeling of Christmas magic one only finds around small children. Things were going fairly well until after dinner, when Scott decided to go out for an unnecessary liquor run. When he failed to return or answer her calls, she left the kids at home with their grandparents and headed south. Naturally, she found him where she always found him. There they were - Tessa, Greg, and their newborn baby daughter opening presents in the living room by the Christmas tree, a perfect Rockefeller painting framed by the bay window. Then, there was her husband. Her entitled, self-centred, masochist of a husband simply stood there with his hands in his pockets and watched them from the sidewalk, alone and shivering out in the cold.

Swallowing down a wave of nausea, she took a page from the other woman’s book and left him there to suffer in silence. Two hours later, when he finally came home with a bitter scowl and red-rimmed eyes, the son of a bitch had the audacity to claim that the store had been all out of liquor, not even having the decency to concoct a second-rate lie. Jackie stared at him with a vicious grin. “Don’t worry _baby, _I already bought plenty to drink. I promise you won’t be _missing out_,” she mocked with a petty smile, before she left him alone in the kitchen, fists clenched and dried tears visible on his frostbitten cheeks.

Another year, another chapter in the story of their lives, where they all found themselves in attendance at a mutual friend’s wedding. It was there that she slowly followed Scott’s gaze until it landed on Tessa and Greg, happily swaying about on the dance floor. Tessa, she thought, was trying way too hard to show how happy she was with that husband of hers. Jackie tore he eyes away from the couple and looked at her own husband, only to watch the muscles in his jaw quiver and tighten.

“Come on, let’s dance,” he said to her, forcefully grabbing her by the hand and dragging her out onto the dance floor. She danced with him until her sides ached, an unwitting participant in an unsanctioned competition. 

After what felt like hours of dancing, Scott left her to rest her aching feet at their table while he went to get some air. As she surveyed the room, she saw Greg chatting with a groomsman and nursing a whiskey on the rocks, his own dance partner also conspicuously absent. Wincing, she shoved her feet back into her heels and made her way out of the ballroom, following the sound of familiar voices as she crept down the deserted hallway. When she reached a door that was slightly ajar, she peered inside.

Tessa’s back was against the bookshelf, eyes shut tightly, trapped by Scott’s close proximity. Neither noticed her watching from the crack in the doorway, as she listened to their hushed conversation.

“Look me in the eyes, Tess. Look me in the eyes and tell me you love him just as much as you love me,” Scott challenged.

Tessa opened her eyes and stared directly at the man in front of her. “I love him. I’m _in_ love with him.”

Both women watched as he only moved closer, his body a hair's breadth away from hers. “Do you want him as much as you want me?”

“More,” she said without hesitation, eyes still defiantly locked with his, their faces only centimetres apart.

“Well then, I guess I only have one more question,” he sighed, moving his hands to her hips, his lips grazing her cheek as he leaned to whisper in her ear. “Sure, you may love and want him,” he pressed himself flush against her, “but do you _need_ him as much as you need me?”

Jackie watched as Tessa’s eyes screwed shut, her body rigid. Then, she watched her husband begin to place a trail of kisses along the other woman’s jaw, before stopping to mouth something that looked an awful lot like _I need you _against her skin. At that, the other woman’s resolve broke, as her hands flew to tangle in Scott’s hair, yanking his head back in order to crash her lips to his in a bruising kiss. As she heard the familiar clanging of her husband’s belt buckle, she slowly turned around and walked away.

At the end of the night, as she sat in her bathroom and soaked her aching feet, Scott appeared in the doorway with a hot toddy just for her. She hated him for the kind gesture, almost wished he hadn’t done it at all. Life would be so much easier, she thought, if he was simply an ass all the time, without these periodic moments of kindness. 

That evening, as she sat in the alone and aching in the bathroom, Jackie realized that she was no longer getting the same sense of satisfaction out of playing her role in this a sick and twisted story.

The page turned on another year, and they all met once again at the Ilderton Fair. The first thing she noticed was that Greg was away on yet another business trip, and she would have felt bad, if she hadn’t envied his ability to escape the madness. Personally, she always loved a good temporary escape, so it wasn’t until her boys brought it to her attention that she realized she had lost track of Scott. 

As she walked into the lobby of the rink, she stopped short. She immediately saw Tessa’s newest addition, Alice, sleeping peacefully in her carrier. The rumours had been true - she looked exactly like her sister had at that age. Amelia had been a beautiful baby, sporting a shock of dark brown hair and vibrant hazel eyes. An impossibly tiny little thing, always so quiet and alert, as if she felt the need to to be wary of everything and everyone around her - obviously, she was the smart one in the family. She watched as Amelia, now three, kissed her tiny baby sister on the head, Tessa and Scott happily observing from nearby.

“Good job, princess,” her husband said with a smile, wrapping the little girl up in his arms. 

The moment they noticed her, Tessa quickly swooped in, possessively grabbing the little girl and loudly proclaiming, “Come on, sweetheart! It’s time to go FaceTime with daddy!” The other woman threw a spite-filled glare at Scott, as she roughly picked up the carrier and quickly made her exit.

“There you are,” Jackie said sweetly, noting the anger and guilt swirling in Scott’s eyes.

It was so completely and utterly fucked up, she thought, that they only enjoyed playing their perverse little games in front of an audience.

Their lives dragged on, and she began to grow restless, ostensibly stuck in a cycle of never-ending monotony. Until, one day, her story finally started building toward a climax.

All of the children had been skating at Ilderton Skating Club for the last few years, and Scott was always changing his schedule in order to coach their youngest son’s class. Unfortunately, that also meant that she was constantly brought face to face with the one and only Tessa Virtue, whose prodigious offspring skated in the same group. It proved to be a recipe for years of misery. 

Day after day, month after month, she was forced to play the role of spectator in _Fear and Loathing in Ilderton, Ontario, _starring hometown antiheroes Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. It was like being forced to watch the world’s most predictable and ridiculously repetitive train wreck, and yet the PTA Moms _still_ wondered why she drank. 

Her only reprieve was her monthly date nights. She would leave the kids with the grandparents, and they would book a night in a mediocre motel room, enjoy several rounds of decent sex, reflect on the past month, and talk about their boys, before she would have to dive head-first back into the monotony of her daily life once more.

Then, one day, Scott suggested that Tessa’s tiny daughter and her lanky youngest son would make perfect skating partners.

Sometimes, she genuinely wondered if one of her husband’s brothers had dropped him on the head as a child. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

She was actually surprised to see a look of alarm on Tessa’s face, before it was quickly replaced by her usual, generically content exterior. “I just think it would put too much pressure on them to try to live up to the legacy of their surnames,” came her diplomatic explanation. Jackie audibly snorted as she watched Tessa swallow the lump in her throat. She had to give the woman credit, though, for managing to come up with at least some sort of explanation, no matter how fraudulent, for why they were refusing to go along with Scott’s unbelievably transparent scheme.

As the children continued to skate - not as partners, thank god for small miracles - she found it increasingly difficult to avoid the woman who attracted her husband like a moth to a flame. They would find themselves sitting in the same section of bleachers at the rink, Tessa’s immaculate, coordinated, and borderline seductive ensembles a stark contrast to her own assortment of yoga pants and school sweatshirts. And while Tessa kindly clapped for all of the students, Jackie could never help but laugh at the kids, who, more often than not, ended up mimicking unsteady baby giraffes. It was also crystal clear that her sons had inherited her own lacklustre skating skills. She never really cared about their potential abilities on the ice, but Scott had always lived in complete and utter denial regarding the entire situation, and it served as the driving force behind a variety of humorous mishaps. Still, every Saturday morning, Jackie found herself at the rink, cold, tired, and miserable. Aside from the antics of her sons, her only enjoyment on those days came from the vodka in her coffee. She dared anyone to judge her - hypocrites all of them, because she knew they would be doing the same, if they were in her shoes.

Then, one day during practice, her husband lost his temper with the kids. They were struggling with some sort of new something or another, and _of course_ their lack of understand couldn’t have _possibly_ been Scott’s fault. She watched him yell at the wide-eyed children, Jackson’s face full of hurt and anger, little Amelia terrified and flinching at every word. One glance at Amelia’s mother told Jackie exactly where the little girl had learned _that_ reaction. The woman was also flinching, clearly livid about the treatment of her daughter, yet doggedly determined to simply stand there and take it. She took a sweeping glance at the other skating moms, but they were all buried in their phones, pretending not to notice the scene in front of them, not wanting to be the one to criticize Ilderton’s beloved golden boy.

She sighed and marched down to the boards. “What the hell, Scott?!” she screamed. “They’re seven and eight years old!” That got his attention, as well as everyone else’s. He turned toward her with fire in his eyes, and she watched him grind his teeth, before gesturing at the kids to skate some laps and gliding off to the side to angrily sulk.

As she made her way back to her seat, she glanced over and caught Tessa’s eye. The other woman simply set her jaw and turned her gaze back at the ice, where Scott had called Amelia over to apologize for scaring her. Jackie continued to walk back to her seat in disbelief. 

He wants what he wants when he wants it, she thought, and he will play you hot and cold until you give it to him. 

And then he takes, and he takes, and he takes.

The next day, she found herself feeling particularly brazen. Little Amelia had just landed an axel, and the smile her husband threw toward the perfectly coiffed woman nearby, who purposefully made a show of ignoring him, propelled Jackie down the bleachers toward the female half of the infamous skating duo.

Tessa gave her a fake smile as she sat down, and she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. She continued to watch the kids for a moment, before bluntly asking, “Are you still in love with Scott?”

Tessa’s smile faltered. “I’m in love with my husband.” She pitied the girl, because it was clear she was speaking the truth.

“He’s still in love with you, you know,” Jackie stated, surprised at how easily the truth rolled off her tongue.

Tessa remained silent, body stiff and still. It must be hard, Jackie thought, to be wound so tightly. She pulled out her flask and offered it to Tessa, only to become annoyed when Little Miss Perfect turned it down, a look of judgement in her eyes. “Of course,” she scoffed, “you wouldn’t want to do anything to ruin the image of your perfect little life, now would you?”

Tessa let out a small, self-deprecating laugh. “My life is far from perfect.”

“Oh really? Let’s see. A big beautiful house, a fat checking account, two perfect little daughters, and a gorgeous husband. No, you definitely couldn’t have a little sip of alcohol ruining _that_ kind of perfection,” she derided her. 

In a rare show of vulnerability, Tessa’s mask slipped from her face, replaced by a look that reflected Jackie’s own all-too-familiar misery. “Funny. You should tell that joke to my marriage counsellor.”

She didn’t have a reply. She had always found it awkward when people went off script. 

Tessa must have been feeling brazen as well, because she suddenly asked, “Are _you_ still in love with him? Scott?” 

“Unfortunately,” she murmured. Tessa let out a small laugh and gave a slight nod in understanding. She felt the bile rise in her throat. Jackie would rather kill herself than admit that she and Tessa Virtue were one and the same, not that killing herself would make a difference. They were already in hell anyway. 

She took another swig from her flask, sighing as she felt the burn of the liquor in her throat, eating away at her revolting revelation. Then, she stood up, threw her bag over her shoulder, and headed out to the parking lot. Scott could bring the boys home for once.

From that point on, she tried her best to avoid the rink. At least, until the other woman made herself scarce. She had no idea what had caused Tessa’s sudden disappearance, until her older son, Landon, came home one day with some interesting information to report. 

“Apparently, Amelia told Jackson that her dad got a new job and that they’re moving to New York,” he said, sandy blonde locks falling into his eyes.

Later that night, as they were brushing their teeth before bed, she asked her husband about the news. “Did you hear that Tessa and Greg are moving?”

“Yep,” he spit out, the word flying through the air like shrapnel. Then, he shut the bathroom door, and she was so exhausted that she couldn’t even bring herself to care that he had shut it with too much force.

The next day, body stiff and feet dragging, Jackie headed down to his office to drop off Jackson’s forgotten skates for his practice later that afternoon. As she made her way down the stairs, she heard yelling coming from the end of the hall.

_“So he took the job and then said it was my decision!”_

_“You don’t have to-“_

_“But I _want_ to! Don’t you get it, Scott? I want _him_, not-“_

_“And what about what’s best for the girls?!”_

_“Keeping my family intact _is_ what’s best for the girls!”_

_“So you’re just going to take them away from-“_

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting?” she calmly questioned, slowly slinking into the office. Jackie was suddenly wide awake, eyes bright and shining, walking with a bounce in her step for the first time in years. It was as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders, and she was free floating, rising higher and higher, quickly becoming light and giddy from a lack of oxygen. The two of them stood shackled in place, gawking at her.

Scott broke first. “Jackie-”

She abruptly cut him off. “Don’t worry, _sweetheart_. I already know.”

She would have found his genuine confusion cute, once upon a time. “Know what?”

“About Amelia and Alice.” They remained silent. “You know,” she looked directly her husband, “your daughters?" The two stared at her, eyes wide and expressionless. “What, was that supposed to be some kind of secret?” she laughed. Their naiveté was simultaneously unbelievable and undeniable.

She swore that she could feel the guilt seeping from Tessa’s pores. “Jackie-”

She put a hand up. “Save it, Tessa.” This was _her_ story.

“Are… when did you… how did… why the fuck are you so calm?” Scott stuttered, frustrated and angered by her lack of reaction. Apparently, her poor, pathetic husband was still determined to live in denial. 

Jackie slowly sat down, crossed her arms, and leaned back in her chair. “Well, despite what you two _clearly_ think, this isn’t exactly news to me,” she grinned. “Besides, as far as I’m concerned, all of this changes nothing. You’re still married to me, Tessa’s still married to Greg, and, at the end of the day, you still have two biological children,” she finished with a venomous smile.

It took him a moment, and she watched him closely as her words sunk in. “Two chil-… you mean four.” She continued to smile at him, a cheshire cat playing with her prey. “You just said you knew that-“ His face paled. “No,” his jaw went slack, as he wordlessly stared at her. Tessa remained standing, frozen, wide-eyed, and silent.

Jackie simply shrugged. “You two aren’t the only ones who can play games.”

As she watched him sitting there holding his head in his hands, she couldn’t help but feel bad for Scott. Jackie had always known exactly how this story would end. Scott, on the other hand, well, he had never even opened the book. Then again, she wasn’t sure if it would have made much of a difference. 

After all, a twist isn’t really a twist if you can see it coming.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Inspired by illstrash and current events  
\- Title from Lifeless by Stolen Babies  
\- Written as writing exercise focused on crafting plot twists, based on the prompt, “What’s the worst that could happen? Do that.”


End file.
